Um yeah, minus a couple weeks around a year....dd didn't start sleeping THROUGH the night until a little after she weaned COMPLETELY! Even if she wasn't nursing during the night, she was still waking up!

My experience is that my babies do start sleeping through the night sleeping with us sooner or later, but eventually they revert back to alot of nightwaking and that is the point where we are all ready for a new sleep arrangement. From all the stories I've heard, I would say your friend *is* lucky and should not consider her children the norm. Some people can sleep through nursing too, while I never could.

well that is in no way norm here my dd never slept threw the night till she was 3.5 waking for milk even now at almost 5 she still dont sleep threw the night every night my ds is 6 months and has only once slept for about 6 hours straight never threw the night he wakes about 4 times in the night maybe more he only takes one side a feeding most times

My dd is 9 months old and she sleeps through the night most nights. Occassionally she wakes up around 11 when I go to bed and nurses for a minute or two and once in a while she wakes up around 4 or 5 and nurses. To be honest, I wouldn't mind if she woke up to nurse more often cos I hardly wake up at all and she doesn't nurse during the day when I'm at work, but since she was very little she has always felt that night time is for sleeping. I am very lucky. Most babies and not like this - and I keep expecting her to decide that she doesn't want to sleep at night.

well, I didn't bf DS1, but we co-slept & I'd have to get up to pump & bottle-feed.
With DS2, we coslept and bf'd and I'd say we both slept through the night pretty early on - as soon as he learned how to latch on and nurse without waking up
I'd wake briefly to "rotate sides", but we slept very well.

I co sleep and am woken pretty much 2-3 hourly all night, more like 2 hourly really, baby is 7mo. I was just about driven nuts and thought the universe was playing tricks on me because every other mum I met had young babys that slept through!! arrrghhh! Anyway I'm glad to have found this forum. Also my partner sleeps in a separate bed...he seems quite happy. But I notice other people dont seem to like the idea. Someone asked me if he was sleeping in his own room yet and I said no but husband is! Ha ha ps Im new here, what does ds and dd actually stand for, (forgive my ignorance)

My XDP always told people that our DD "slept through the night" starting at two weeks old. Ha. What he meant was that HE slept through the night, because she never cried after I learned how to nurse lying down & started co-sleeping so she could just latch on. It is easy for me to go back to sleep so these nightwakings have never bothered me, but she is now 31 months, we still cosleep & nurse, and she still wakes up 1-2 times a night to nurse, no exceptions.

I co sleep and am woken pretty much 2-3 hourly all night, more like 2 hourly really, baby is 7mo. I was just about driven nuts and thought the universe was playing tricks on me because every other mum I met had young babys that slept through!! arrrghhh! Anyway I'm glad to have found this forum. Also my partner sleeps in a separate bed...he seems quite happy. But I notice other people dont seem to like the idea. Someone asked me if he was sleeping in his own room yet and I said no but husband is! Ha ha ps Im new here, what does ds and dd actually stand for, (forgive my ignorance)

There are others here who sleep in a different bed from their husbands, like me. We actually sleep in different rooms too. I miss him sometimes, but he doesn't seem to mind and it works for us right now. And ya.. I get peoples negative comments about that all the time. The ones about me causing the downfall to the marriage bed and divorce is coming are the best.

Autistic pagan mama with five kiddos on the spectrum, learning through living life.

DD#1 woke frequently throughout the night until she turned 2, and then remarkably started sleeping through the night--the whole night!! She weaned herself at 2 yr. 4 mos and continues to sleep all night to this day (she's 4.5). DD#2 is 18 mos and her nights are variable...some nights she wakes frequently to nurse (like last night, for instance when she woke 2x each HOUR until about 4:30 and then slept until 7.:yawning But on other nights she'll fall asleep around 9:30 or 10 and sleep until 5. For her, I think teething is her main waking factor.

my oldest woke up all night long every night until we night weened at over 2yo, my 5mo. has slept 8-9 hours a night every night since he was 2 weeks old (he really has and I keep waiting for it to end, I'm still so sure that it well, but I'm enjoying it now while it lasts ) we didn't do anything differently, just different kids

My almost 4 yo ds has slept 7 hours without waking me to nurse ONCE in his life. As a newborn he used to sleep 5 hours, nurse once, go back to sleep for 3 hours. He even slept 6 hours once before waking to nurse. But by 2-3 months of age the nightwaking started and never stopped. He wakes every 1-2 hours and I have to comfort him back to sleep. I think it was teething that started it, but I have no clue why he has not outgrown this nightwaking. I think I have to nigtwean - but that is going to be hard and exhausting and I am dreading it. :

My second daughter is almost 11 months old. She wakes 2-5 times every night to nurse. We are trying an experiment tonight though. I just nursed her to sleep and put her in her crib (she has napped in there only a handful of times). Usually she sleeps and naps in our bed but she is crawling everywhere and I thought she may need to start napping in her crib so she does not fall off the bed. Anyway, we were curious if she would sleep better if she was not in our bed. My guess is she will be up in the next hour or two and will be back in our bed with us...which is where I like her.

My 2 year old dd sleeps with us, AND is breastfeeding ( to sleep too) and sleeps through the night. If she does wake, I or dh pats her back and tells her to go back to sleep. And she does. She started doing this around 18 months.

My ds wasn't co sleeping but slept through the night at 3 months with no cio and was breastfed and breastfed to sleep. He ended up co sleeping with us because he was nightwaking around 18 months and began to nurse at night again. I nightweaned him around 26 months and continued to cosleep with him till he was almost 3.

My 21 month old still wakes up 3 or 4 times at night (from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.-ish). I think it's totally normal for him. I still haven't gotten more than a four hour stretch of sleep since he's been born...

Heck - my 9 year old still doesn't sleep through the night, but he stays in his bed unless he needs me.

We are cosleepers - my older son has been in his own bed since he was around 5, but he knows he can sleep with us when he wants/needs to.

My 3 year old slept through the night from 4-6 mos of age. At 6 mos, I got my period, my supply dropped (not bad enough to worry, but enough to make him nurse more often) and he started teething. He started sleeping through the night again around 18 mos of age. He just weaned about 6 weeks ago or something like that.

My oldest didn't sleep through the night until he was around 4, and I weaned him at 15 mos.

Liam still wakes up a lot, but it has gotten much better since he started Zantac.

I think there is a wide range of normal and neither your kids nor your friends are odd.

My DD selpt through the night for a little over the first month. Now at 9 months we have full nights sleep for phases and then phases where she gets up a few times a night. Then there are times when we are co-sleeping and we need to move her and that results in her waking up and then being soothed back to sleep instead of nursing.

I haven't read all the posts, but did your friend do pacifiers, or did her kids suck their thumbs or have loveys?

My first woke every two-three hours to nurse until I nightweaned her. My second has been sleeping through the night (with the exception of bad teething periods) since she was about 3 months old. But she also sucks her thumb and has a wooby.

i too haven't had time to read all of the posts, but i will proudly stand and be counted as one of the few co-sleeping families with a dc that sleeps through the night. our dd started sleeping through the night by about 2-2.5mos. she started having a difficult time sleeping at about 6 mos when she was getting her first teeth, and then mellowed out by 7mos. but then at 8mos she went on a nursing strike that is still going on 6mos later. i pump for her now, but aside from teething, she slept through the night very early on.

i don't think anyone with dcs that wake at night are doing anything wrong, i just think we got really lucky, and i definitely think our dd is not the norm as far as her sleep habits goes. and as far as the pp (melissel) mentioned, my dd has never taken a pacifier, and just recently adopted a blankey, but i don't think it has any bearing on her sleep habits.

What a funny night to be reading this thread - my 11 month old is sleeping at this very moment in his crib for the first time. He's been in bed with us and has NEVER slept through the night. I can't even count the number of times he snacks throughout the night when he's in bed with us.

It's not that I'm calling your friend a liar but it's so hard to imagine what she says to be true, mostly because I can't see beyond my own sleepy experience I guess. But instead of being jealous I'm going to try and be happy for her and embrace your idea of the spectrum of normal.

My son hasn't breastfed since he was 9 months old and doesn't regularly cosleep, and at 2 he STILL doesn't sleep through the night. He's done it a handful of times (usually during growth spurts), but usually he wakes up at least once or twice.

... THE ONLY breastfeeding and co-sleeping Mom I have EVER heard say that. EVERYONE else I know has kids that wake every 1-3 hours ALL NIGHT LONG for basically the duration of their co-sleeping and nursing."

How long do you intend to cosleep and nurse?

Yes, my infants woke that often, but once they hit a certain age, it stops. And once they are old enough to find the breast by themselves, they stopped waking me up, too. (That latching-on-by-themselves stuff was in the general area of 8, 9 months old for all of them, give or take.)

And my oldest sleeps in another room about half the time, maybe three, four nights a week, and the other three or four nights a week is still in the family bed. And he's 9yo b'H. Along with my other three kids who are in the family bed every night, the youngest of whom is a few weeks from 3yo and is still nursing ... and no, she doesn't wake up every one to three hours either. Thank G!d.

They all stopped the waking-every-one-to-three hours thing in the general area of six months-ish, with occasional returns to it like during major teething periods, etc. Not a problem either way ... just part of parenting.

And the duration of cosleeping can be very long. Years and years long. And all my kids weaned over age three, too. So you might want to rephrase the above sentence in re "basically the duration of" stuff in the OP.